The latest development in the ongoing NSFAS probe has found that several institutions in the country still owe millions in unallocated funds from 2016 to 2021 to the bursary scheme.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago explains that the unallocated money was for qualifying students who either deregistered or changed institutions.
However, the funds stayed in the possession of the institutions.
Unallocated Funds
The SIU’s investigation revealed that the scheme failed implement measures that would ensure that there is an annual reconciliation between the funds disbursed to the institutions and the funded list of registered students.
At the end of each year, NSFAS was supposed to do a reconciliation and say: we have given you so many millions for this many students let us see how many of them have registered and subtract the amount of those that have registered and studied and then what is remaining you bring it back.
He says that during 2016 and 2021 NSFAS was not doing the reconciliation process. To remedy this, the scheme has recently appointed a service provider to help them perform this reconciliation in a process called 'close-out reporting'.
Kganyago notes, “We have found out that it has been happening at all the institutions. They kept the money instead of giving it back at the end of the financial year.”
Thus far, the University of Johannesburg has returned R311 million to NSFAS bringing the total repaid to R349.3 million since the Special Investigating Unit launched its investigation.
The SIU welcomed the payment and has called on other institutions to follow suit and return unallocated funds to the scheme.
They expect to recover over R1 billion from five implicated institutions and recoup any accumulated interest and return it to the bursary scheme.
Unduly Funded Students
In April, as part of the NSFAS probe, SIU reported that approximately R5 billion in NSFAS funds were wrongfully awarded to over 40 000 students who did not qualify for the funding between 2018 and 2021.
According to the SIU, these beneficiaries did not provide their parents' details during the application process, which led to an inaccurate means test being conducted.
The SIU is currently in the process of recovering funds from unduly funded students.
In light of the discovery, many have welcomed and acknowledged the investigation. However, many have also voiced that the SIU and the bursary scheme should not criminalise these students.
Responding to the SUI report, the EFF student command noted:
Although we acknowledge and command the work of the SUI in probing stubborn corruption in the DHET, we take exception to its harassment of families which fall within the missing middle in South Africa.
The student command says that the current NSFAS funding model has left behind thousands of students who do not fall within the R350,000 income threshold, who still cannot afford costs of tertiary education.
They add, “Families bellowing to the missing middle were hard hit by the Covid-19 economic environment. Unable to keep up with the rising interest rates on education, these families are bound in a permanent cycle of debt, economic depressions, and distress.”
The SUI's report on unduly funded students has increased calls to the Department of Higher Education to develop a comprehensive student funding model, which seeks to support not only low income families, but missing middle students as well.
